JUNE 25.


John Bidwell, prince of California pioneers, was my chief in a
memorable camping trip in the northern Sierras. What a magnificent
camper was Bidwell! What a world of experience, what a wealth of
reminiscence! What a knowledge; what unbounded hospitality! Not while
life lasts can I forget the gentle yet commanding greatness of this
man, whose friendships and benefactions were as broad as his spreading
acres of Rancho Chico.

ROCKWELL D. HUNT,
in _Camping Out in California, Overland Monthly,
September_, 1907.



JUNE 26.


The average stage-driver merits one's liveliest gratitude. He is the
essence of good nature and thoughtfulness. His stories, tinctured by
his own quaint personality, ward off the drowsy wings of sleep and
materially shorten the long hours of the night. * * * To the
households scattered along his route he is the never-failing bearer of
letters, and newspapers, and all sorts of commodities, from a sack of
flour to a spool of cotton. His interest in their individual needs is
universal, and the memory he displays is simply phenomenal. He has
traveled up and down among them for many years, and calls each one by